iPhone Stolen —From Guy Who Just Stole It

'Apple picking' amounts to 14% of NYC crime

(Newser)
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How rampant is 'Apple-picking'—iPhone and iPad theft—in New York City? Well, last year saw 16,000 thefts, or 14% of total city crimes. Consider a case related by the New York Times, in which the same phone was stolen twice in an afternoon. A teenage girl was strolling through Brooklyn when a trio of teenage boys grabbed her iPhone from her hand. She quickly reported the theft to police, who escorted her in their car to look for the culprits. Meanwhile, one of the boys, carrying the phone, approached a man who appeared ready to buy it.

Rather than paying for it, however, the man stole it and fled. The boy then had the gumption to go to police himself, saying his phone had been stolen. Cops found the man and took him to a police station, along with the boy. Soon after, officer Denisse Pacheco—who was with the original victim—called the phone; in the ensuing conversation, both officers realized what was going on. Pacheco and the girl headed to the station, where the girl identified the boy, then put her PIN in the phone—something the boy wasn't able to do.

Karma is the B-word. Especially if you're stupid.
The mods won't let me use the B-word this morning. Internet Gestapo. :)

myflap.blow

Jan 27, 2013 3:06 AM CST

"...then put her PIN in the phone—something the boy wasn't able to do."
and now the boy is in jail where someone else is again putting their PIN into his receiver device

Luna_Park

Jan 26, 2013 11:30 PM CST

Ah, who cares? iPhones are crap anyway, compared to the Galaxy S3. I wouldn't buy one, let alone steal one. My wife has an iPhone 5, and it keeps forgetting how to get on the Wi-Fi of our home network. Turns out this is a big discussion thread on the Apple support site. And while it was still working, I think her iPhone 5 would flip to 3G (or 4G, or LTE, what have you) without warning. Because she used up her entire month's data allowance while Facebooking from home! While our network was right there! Wotta POS!
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You know the only workaround I found for this exasperating annoyance? (I mean the loss of Wi-Fi connectivity, not the data allowance stealing.) I first disabled security on our wireless modem, and the dumb iPhone 5 connected right away. But you can't have an open wireless network, can you? Too dangerous.
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So then I told the iPhone to "Forget" our home network and then I'd define an "Other Network." The phone would ask for the name and security type of this other network, and I'd enter the name of the very same home network, and define WPA2 for security, and duh! it'd figure it out. Gee, Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave.

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